Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Every time we go for a walk in the desert behind our house we always find something new. Sometimes it is a gift from nature, the first spring wildflower, an intriguing rock formation or an animal print that causes us to wonder what animal made it and when it passed by. Other times it is man made. On one of our long hikes, we found an early 60's Corvair in a dry arroyo (a dry creek bed for non-desert dwellers) half buried in sand. Gene thought it was way cool. It was one of the rare moments that he did not have his camera. We pondered how it had traveled there and imagined it floating during a desert flood...

Another day, another walk we found a really old automobile license plate. (Perhaps this came from the Corvair?) Rusty with the paint worn, I liked how it looked and wanted to keep it. I thought of it as an antique with a colorful past and a hidden story of how it got right there right then. Suddenly I realized that I was older than it! We chuckled but it got me to thinking as we walked home...

Why do I think of my found treasure as old and I am not? Am I an antique?

According to Wikipedia: An antique is an old collectible item. It is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features... Well I do have unique features and am in pretty good condition....

Further more... It is common practice to define "antique", as applying to objects at least 100 years old. Collectibles are the possible antiques of the future and generally less than 100 years old.

So that settles it. CE-4358 and I are collectibles and have another 50 something (+/-) years to go before antiquity claims us.